KELOWNA – A Kelowna business owner is so sick of thieves stealing from her store that she’s plastered their faces on a “wall of shame.”
Kim Williams, owner of an adult store called Wild Kingdom, says she had to resort to public shaming after a rash of shoplifting incidents has her down thousands of dollars in inventory.
“They are adults that know better and they’re coming in to my business and taking whatever they want to take from hard working people,” says Williams.
Williams says in the 18 years she has run this downtown business, theft has been a big issue.
Williams says within a few seconds, the man started stuffing lingerie and other items into his jacket.
“I saw that from my back office, I immediately went out and confronted him,” says Williams. “He handed it to me and I told him he has to stay here while I call the police, he then assaulted me.”
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She has invested close to $20,000 in security equipment, like a high-end surveillance system.
Williams isn’t alone, the Downtown Kelowna Association (DKA) says businesses are targeted every week, while those are mainly shoplifting incidents during store hours, some businesses deal with break and enters as well.
An early morning break-in earlier this summer at Duke and Duchess Apparel took a big toll on the downtown clothing store.
“It’s just me and my fiancé, we kind of put everything we had in this so it’s really rough to see that,” said store owner Cassie Bonthoux in an interview with Global News after the break and enter incident at her store in June.
The DKA says it does all it can to ensure thieves are caught.
“We have what’s called a shop alert system for all of the businesses so if someone feels like they have had a theft occur or a theft they believe happened, they will phone us and give us a description,” says Ron Beahun, On-Street Services Manager for Downtown Kelowna Association.
Every week, downtown store owners are sent reports with suspect descriptions from the DKA; banding together and working with RCMP to catch the culprits.
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